Tip the Scales
by Literature work
Summary: This is a story that I wrote for my english class that follows the major themes of the book which was 'imbalance of power ' it is about a military officer, Yggy Apperton, who tries to survive in her job as a secretary officer. However, through recent events and a new peace treaty from a neighboring nation, Yggy finds that it is up to her and her friends to set things right.


**Okay, this was an english project that I was assigned to do for class. My job was to write a story with themes from the book THe Help. It took only two days to write, so the ending is kind of rushed but I thought that it would be fun to post this. The theme is 'Imbalance of power' due to the events of social justice during the book and there are several quotes in the book (though some slightly altered to fit the scenario). This was an english assignment and I had to place these in there. I am thinking about making this an actual story at some point but it might take a while. This is my rough draft.**

Tip the Scales

Yggy ran down the corridor of the government offices papers flying everywhere. It was nearing the end of the term where all final decisions needed to be made. Officers and secretaries ran about the place opening and closing filing cabinets and rapidly dialing numbers into the rotary phones in order to get all commands filed and in order. Officer Yggy Apperton didn't like it that the Commanders waited until the very last minute until they turned in all of the paper work. It made her work a complete waste of time in the beginning of the months, but when the end of the calendar started to roll near, she had very little time to even breathe. Breathing was a waste of time in the weeks of the finishing term. Yggy raced to the Colonel's office with a giant file of papers that he had to sign. When she entered the oak doors she nearly ran over Bernadette who was carrying her own stack of papers to their rightful places. It wasn't like the Colonel was any better with his paper work either. She often would see Bernadette even signing the paper work for him in some extreme cases of procrastination. She knew what needed to be done and when, because she would never forget an appointment that the Colonel would need to take. She ran both her schedule as well as his. It wasn't like the commanding officers were ignoring their duties, because with the country on the edge of war, there was a lot that the officers needed to do, but they were always too busy to get a paper cut once in a while.

The Colonel was on the phone with what seemed to be his wife, but as everyone knew, they were only engaged for ten years. He looked up at her from his desk as she slammed the file down. She decided to ignore the look on his face. Yggy knew that she was a mess, her uniform was askew, her curly messy hair was falling out of her usually up kept bun, and she was panting from all of the running around she was doing, but it wasn't anything out of the usual. She gave him a salute like normal and the Colonel motioned for her to calm down.

"You look terrible, are you getting enough sleep?" the man asked her as he fingered the piles of papers that lay on his desk. Several of them were simple soldier recruitments that needed to be reviewed or transcriptions for battalions, but the one that she placed in front of him was covered in bright red letters, URGENT. He was tracing the letters with his hand but he never actually opened it.

"Sir, this is a peace treaty for the acts out on the front. The Helasians are wanting to negotiate a temporary peace with us. This needs to be reviewed and replied to within the week," she informed him. The Colonel opened it up and skimmed over the top paper. With a small grimace on his face, he closed the file again.

"This is stuff for the president to do, why not send this off to him?" the man mumbled and picked up a clean, unused pen.

"Sir, the Helasians are not making peace with the nation, just with the war. You are in charge of that. The President is making his own treaty as we speak for the nation's cause. Right now, we just need it to stop the battle." The Colonel gave a grunt and then a nod. He leaned forward and started to skim the file. Yggy stood there a little awkwardly waiting for her Commanding officer to dismiss her. It took a few pages for him to actually recognize that she was still there. He looked up a little shocked to see someone in his office.

"You may leave," he said sternly. Yggy gratefully made her way towards the doors with the hope of an early leave. Those dreams were crushed however, when the man clapped his hands together to get her attention. Her hands were just on the door knob. "Wait," he said holding up a stack of papers that was nearly ten text books tall, "I need you to file and sort these into the mail room. One to each corresponding mailbox."

Yggy ran down the hallway with her new, larger stack of papers. The mail room was all the way across the base from the Colonel's office. She had to dodge a couple officers who were racing around on their own errands for their C.O.s. One nearly managed to run her over with a letter cart. Rachael was sitting at one of the mailroom work benches sorting her pile of paper work which the General gave her. The General was in a higher position than her Commanding officer, the Colonel, and was the battle strategist of the military. He was generally good at the game of chess and would always find a way to checkmate his opponent even if it wasn't his turn. Rachael, being his second in command, was the only one who could beat him in chess, not because she knew how to play the game, just because she was always cleaning up his desk and constantly came upon his score sheets. Yggy sat down next to her and started to sort through the letters that weren't even alphabetized.

"What are you doing down here so late?" Yggy asked Rachael tiredly. The woman shrugged and sealed another envelope.

"The General wanted me to mail out notices to all of the lower ranking officers about the upcoming deployment. He is going to be sending some recruits out to the front lines for the campaign. These are the unfortunate soldiers," she sighed and put a stamp on the address.

"What do you mean that they are going to be deploying more bodies? The Colonel just got a file from the ward directory for the war's ending."

"The war might be over, but some things happen in the reconstruction. They are sending more soldiers out in case of a backfire. I don't think it is right though," Rachael mumbled as she pushed up the large square glasses that framed her face. "The Helasians are a generally docile ethnic group and only attack when provoked. If you study the battle history, they performed mostly defensive maneuvers the whole time, barely any offensive."

"What about that-"

"That one time in Gevare was not a freak outburst. Our troops cornered them. What do you think they were going to do? They are fighting for their lives, not their rights. It is basically an extermination campaign out there. If we send in more troops, that Gevare massacre is going to happen all over again," Rachael argued. She shoved a couple more letters into the envelopes and sealed them shut. Her pile of papers gradually grew smaller as the stuffed envelopes grew bigger. There were nearly a thousand letters in her hands, nearly a thousand soldiers that were being sent to the front for no reason. Yggy glanced at her papers. They were obituary notices that the Colonel didn't send out yet.

"This isn't what I signed up for," Yggy sighed and put Joshua Mortly in his own yellow envelope. Rachael gave out a cruel chuckle.

"What were you expecting? This is the military, not the local business offices. War is what we are all about."

"Well, there has to be something we can do," Yggy argued. "I don't like sitting here like a lap dog, I want to actually make a difference."

"You mean like a big gun right?" Rachael laughed at her. "You don't have to wear a badge to make a difference. That is the General's one flaw in the game. He uses all of his pawns as sacrifices and doesn't have anything to block and protect himself with."

"But how-"

"Come on Yggdrasil," she said slightly annoyed. Rachael only used her full name when she was trying to get her point across. Usually Yggy would yell at someone who used her first name like that, but Rachael had seniority on her side. "Bernadette does it all the time. You don't think that all of those papers she signs for the Colonel are all his ideas right? She obviously has to have some input on the subject or else she would be holding a gun up to his head and forcing the old man to sign it." Yggy glanced down at her pile of obituary letters. It was a sad sight to see and there was no hope of changing the government with all of these things.

Within the hour, the two of them finished stuffing envelopes and walked over to the mail boxes to be sorted. Yggy quickly shoved all of the letters into the correct alphabetized boxes, but Rachael was sifting through hers sluggishly. She noticed that she had a thousand to begin with and now she had only a hundred. Rachael's messenger bag seemed to get a little heavier.

"What are you going to do with those?" Yggy said not looking in her direction, but continued to sort the mail.

"They're going to get lost in the mail, what else?"

…

After running a few more documents around to the offices, Yggy made her way to the mess hall and got herself some substance. She didn't dare call it food because she didn't want to insult anything edible. Several of the Commanders were laughing in the corner table and making a big commotion. Yggy sat herself down at an empty table away from her commanding officers. She was afraid that if she got too close, they would send her off on another errand before she even took a bite. Rachael and Bernadette joined her with their own matching trays of food and two extra stacks of paperwork. Rachael looked angry at the world while trying to eat a browning salad.

"What happened to you?" Yggy's asked her innocently picking at the solid lump of mash potatoes. Rachael gave a grunt in return but said nothing else.

"She tried to get the general to sign a form for the passing of the treaty," Bernadette said scribbling down a couple names and dates in loopy hand writing that looked more like the Major's from the war room than her own chicken scratch. She didn't even look up from her work to acknowledge the rage that completely filled her fellow officer's face.

"I've had it!" Rachael busted out, jabbing her salad covered for in the direction of the commander's table. Yggy turned around to see them still laughing and pointing in their general direction. "I can't script like you do Berny! I can't! And that General is too lazy to do anything even in the crisis that this nation got itself into! "This man needs 'space' and 'time' as if this was physics and not a war!"(the help, Stockett) I wish that I could take all of this paperwork and shove it up his-"

"Hello ladies!" Charles said crashing down at their table and luckily interrupting Rachael's wrath. He was a Colonel, like Bernadette and Yggy's commanding officer, but he got all of his paper work done on time and in full. The officers guessed that it was due to the fact that he didn't have a subordinate to do it for him ever since Mabel got fire last term. The other commanders refused to give the man a transfer and managed to place all of the recruits in other branches of the military. Charles was a one man work horse. He glanced over at Rachael as if he didn't notice she looked like she was about to cut the general's throat out. "What's her problem?" He asked Yggy.

"I'll tell you what!" Rachael scolded but was cut off by a harsh kick from Bernadette. Yggy slightly tugged her uniform where her pitiful rank was set. They weren't allowed to talk bad about their commanders, and it was pretty bad to be talking like that to one anyway, even if Charles wasn't the most successful colonel out there. Rachael faltered to try and to catch herself while Charles was awaiting an answer. "I mean those staplers! They never work right! Look at the job it did on this case file!" She said shoving her paper work in his face. "How is anyone ever going to get anything done with a stapler that bends the wire until the whole is too big to keep everything in line? Offices these days!" Charles caught onto what they were doing really fast, and let out a sigh of acknowledgment.

"You shouldn't talk bad about them you know; they must have a lot of work on their hands with the campaign and all. It is a wonder how they can even breathe let alone file any paper work," Charles muttered. Yggy rolled her eyes.

"Well while they are having trouble breathing up there near the surface, I am suffocating down here in the mountains of paper work. 'I'd cry if only I had the time to do it,'(the help, Stockett)"

"We know you are thinking the same thing we are, Charles," Bernadette said still keeping her nose in her work. Her handwriting changed from the loopy signatures to the sharp lettering of the colonel. "You might be a colonel, but you got as much authority as we do here."

"I got all the authority that I want!" Charles retorted.

"Then why don't you have your own subordinates? Why do you have to do the equivalent to three officers' jobs? Why aren't you sitting over there with the colonels you are so buddy with?" Charles thought about this for a moment, but didn't seem to be making out with an answer.

"I thought you were due for a promotion last year. Where did that go?" Rachael said cruelly.

"I just wasn't ready for it. I was fresh out of the water of my duties in the war, being down at Gevare and all. They said that I should take some time off for a little bit."

"Charles, they are playing you. They don't want you to get promoted," Yggy said to him. "It is time for you to face the truth."

"How do you know?" Charles defended himself.

"Hon, we hear everything. We hear everything that comes out of their mouths. I heard them talking dirt about you all day last Tuesday. They weren't talking, they were shoveling," Rachael said flatly. The man looked like he was about hit in the face.

"I can't really be that bad can I?" He mumbled quietly. Yggy gave him a pat in the back.

"No Charles. People are idiots. You work harder and more efficient than all of them combined. 'You just have to keep asking yourself, am I going to believe what those fools say about me.' (The help, Stockett) If you don't believe it, then it isn't true."

"Unless you're the General, because what I say about him is the truth," Rachael added.

...

Yggy walked into the colonel's office the following Wednesday to see how the treaty was going. The doors were closed meaning that the man was out to lunch, a very long lunch. Bernadette sat at her desk with her lamp on to brighten the dark work area. More files than she ever seen before were sitting on the corner of her desk and several empty pens were piled in her rubbish bin. Bernadette learned how to write with both hands to avoid writer's cramps and to produce a more efficient work system. However, Yggy barely saw a time where she didn't have her head in a book or pile of papers. She walked over and peered at what she was doing. Several pages of the Helanesian document were spread across her desk. The colonel wasn't even looking at it.

"Bernadette, why are you working on these?" Yggy asked her fingering the documents with her thumb. Bernadette yawned and scribbled down a few notes. Large bags were formed under her eyes from lack of sleep. That week was the officer's hell.

"I am revising the treaty to meet the standards," she said sleepily. Yggy watched her work for a few more silent minutes.

"Do you really put your opinion into signing papers, or do you just do it as ordered?" Yggy questioned her. It was the one rare moment that Bernadette actually looked up from her papers.

"What?"

"Rachael told me that you tend to sign some of the Colonel's papers under your own opinion than his. Is that true?" The officer let out a deep sigh and massaged her tired face in her hands.

"Yes," she finally said after a long pause. "I don't tell nobody, I don't tell nobody about those changes. (The Help, Stockett) If word got out that I was forging, I could wind up in my own prison cell. I would be worse off than poor Mabel. Everyone knows that I can fake signatures, many of the highers try to weasel their way out of work with it, but nobody knows I take that man's work upon myself. I make the decisions that the Colonel never had the guts to do. One of these days I expect that I will be signing his wedding papers as well."

"What type of changes do you do?" Yggy asked innocently.

"Nothing much, just a bit here and a tad there. In government it is all in the wording of the document. You know that grateful raise that all of the officers got? That was me," she took in a huge yawn and rested her head on her desk. "However, this," she said tapping the treaty, "this is my masterpiece. I am going to write it all, every last bit, and send it back to the Helanisians, just to see the Colonel choke on the outcome. Rachael already stopped the deployment of the soldiers that the General sent for." Yggy was slightly frightened at how evil Bernadette got right then. She was always a hard working girl, and didn't have a string in her heart to do anything bad, but it seemed that her friend broke.

"Berny!" Yggy cried throughout the empty office. "What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"I am going to better the nation!" Bernadette cried out and slammed her fist down on the desk silencing everything. Her voice got real quiet and she leaned in menacingly towards Yggy. "That man in there, that man in there doesn't care about the nation. He only cares about his pocket book. War tends to make stock markets for certain manufacturers go sky crazy. I saw the man's old stock files; I know what he's been doing. He never had an intention to send this treaty in on time. He knows that the Helasians aren't going to stay peaceful for long, not with the troops that the General is sending in. I bet that he is on it too. They just want to get rich and watch those men suffer." Yggy glanced from Bernadette down to the half-finished document.

"They are going to find out as soon as it is sent," Yggy warned her. Bernadette gave an unnaturally cruel laugh and went back to the papers.

"I don't care," she chuckled. "The change will come. They are going to think that it is the Colonel any ways. If they somehow find that it is me, it will be too late. The Military Police can't do anything to me now that I didn't already have hanging above my own head."

"I bet if Charles was the Brigader General, he would have signed those papers. Then you wouldn't have to be doing this," Yggy mumbled.

"By the way, can you deliver this notice to the Ranking office?" Bernadette said handing a pink slip to her without looking up from the document. "That is the form for his promotion."

"His what?!"

"Colonel Charles served in the Gevare Massacre and several events during the war. It is common for battle warn soldiers to get a promotion after they return home. Charles should have been raised to at least a Brigadier General, but it was overlooked. I am making sure he gets that long awaited promotion." Yggy curiously opened the slip to see what her friend had written on the paper. Charles did deserve a promotion. After he returned from the war, he didn't talk for a week. He was one of the only survivors of a hundred from the massacre. That would have scarred anyone. Yggy really was glad that Bernadette wasn't just doing these signatures for her own use, but she didn't want her to go overboard with generosity.

"A Major General! That's not one rank! That is two!" Yggy exclaimed.

"Still not enough to match Rachael's commander, but it will do," Bernadette mumbled and signed the last paper of the treaty.

"You and Rachael have gone crazy! What do you think that you are going to do?" Yggy exclaimed. The treaty was placed into a vanilla envelope and closed it shut. A stamp of the President was on the front; a one way ticket to the Helasian commander. Bernadette grabbed her coat off of the back of her chair and slipped in on over her uniform.

"We are going to do our job as military soldiers. You can join us, or you can fight us, but you are not stopping us. This is what I signed up to the military for. I wanted change, and after this is all done, no matter where we all are by the end of this week, all I am going to do is lie down in a bed and sleep the weekend away." Bernadette stormed out of the office, leaving her desk askew. Yggy could see where the chair had dug holes in the floor and where her pen had hit the table so many times it scratched out grates in the beaten wood finish. Bernadette learned several hundred men's handwritings and signatures just to keep the job, she learned them all and she was now throwing it all away with one document. Another officer quietly walked into the office and placed another pile of papers on her desk adding to the mountain that didn't seem to move. There was a difference between doing your job and performing it.

Yggy walked over to her desk and sat down with a bank sheet of paper and an envelope. She took out a fresh pen and twisted the cap onto the top of it tightly.

_Dear Mr. President…_

….

Crowds were cheering outside of the base the next month. Banners and streamers were strung across the street as if there was a parade going on. It almost would have been. The war was over and the tired and worn troops marched their way out of the offices towards their homes. Flags were waving in their honour and the crowd cheered. Not just did the treaty of the war get signed, but also for the nation. A few Helasian welcoming parades were in the lower offices of the base talking to the president and fellow workers of the military. Colors streamed by Yggy's office window as she sorted a few more documents for her commander. Her department was completely empty for the day and the commander's doors were closed. He was out and busy for the afternoon. Yggy leaned back in her chair and stretched out her cramping arms. Her piles of work weren't nearly as big as they once were the previous month and she was grateful, but sometimes she just needed a break. The doors to the office flung open and Charles walked in and placed his hat on the coat rack.

"You are late," Yggy mumbled to her friend as he smiled happily at her and opened the doors to his new office.

"Is that any way to talk to your new commanding officer?" he joked at her. Yggy followed the man into what used to be the Colonel's office, but now was completely refurnished for its new occupant. It seemed like a completely new room with Charles in it and the desk was never coated with unfinished papers. The Colonel as well as the General were arrested and dishonourably discharged from the armed forces by the President for their acts against the nation. The President didn't find about the entire scheme of things going on the in lower ranks, but he was anonymously alerted to the events. The cheers and screams from the crowd outside pelted the silence of the room and made Yggy remember what a commotion her and Bernadette used to cause in the office as they worried about all of the deadlines for their corrupt commanders. It was quiet now without everybody.

"It sure is lonely without Berny here," Yggy said quietly. Charles gave her a silent nod.

"Don't fret, in a few weeks, Rachael will be back in the offices from her temporary discharge. Since she got demoted, she will be working under me."

"It is still not the same without her here though."

"Change is never the same, that is why they call it change," Charles chuckled lightly. "Bernadette will be fine. After she is released, they say that she will be able to get compensation from the ranks for her acts in aiding the war effort. She won't be able to reinstate with the military though, but at least she isn't all on her own. She has us with her." Yggy let out a sad sigh. She knew Bernadette could survive prison, she knew that she could survive everything. It was thriving that Yggy was worried about. The only thing that Bernadette liked to do was support her nation's military. She loved her job, and she gave it up. Yggy didn't want her to survive in the civilian world, because she couldn't thrive in the civilian world, but Charles was right. Bernadette still had them.

"Well," Yggy said with a weak smile. "Bernadette sure knew how to go out with a bang."


End file.
